9th June Hanoi

Woke up with a bit of a hangover. I printed out more bike adverts to replace the ones that had been removed over night. 

Decided to wander through the french quarter to Lenin park which is between Thien Quang lake and Dao Hoa lake.  Just before the entrance to the park was an old SEGA arcade which was dark and dingy inside and had most of the machines switched off. One of the few machines working was air hockey so we had a quick game.

Had a wander through the park, watched people fishing and a man playing on his own with a paper plane. The park has a few old fairground rides, some of which are covered in rust and some which look like they might not be so deadly. The park also has a "muscle beach" style workout area full of muscular Vietnamese men.

Just outside the park we stumbled across a frozen yoghurt store where we could pick our flavours and toppings. It turned out to be fairly expensive but was lovely. Being all modern I decided to have a look on Foursquare for recommended food places nearby and we set off to a food stall nearby. After a few minutes walk we were at the location shown on the map but couldn't find the correct place so we we just sat at the nicest looking street stall and ordered some Bun Rieu Cua which we'd never heard of but looked good. It turned out to be crab noodle soup and was as good as it looked.

Wandered back in the general direction of the hotel, past the opera house and towards the lake. We walked into a small square where skateboarders were attempting to jump some steps so we stayed and watched them for a while before heading back to the hotel for a nap.

We'd been craving lychees for a while and there's normally at least one person selling them on the street near our hotel but not tonight so we wander around a few streets with no luck until heading back and bumping straight into a woman selling them from her bike right near the hotel.